History of the Victorian Scullery

History of the Victorian Scullery A scullery is a room adjoining the kitchen where pots and pans are cleaned and stored. Sometimes the laundering of clothes is also done here. In Great Britain and the United States, houses built before 1920 often had sculleries located in the rear of a house. Scullery comes from the Latin word scutella, meaning tray or platter. Wealthy families who entertained would have to maintain stacks of china and sterling silver would need regular cleaning. The process of cleaning everything in a household was time-consuming- the number of staff required was proportional to the number in the household. Who took care of the household staff? The most menial tasks were carried out by the unskilled, youngest servants known as scullery maids or simply  scullions. These domestic servants were almost always female in the 1800s and were sometimes called skivvies, which is also a word used to describe underwear. Scullery maids did the most humble tasks in the household, including laundering the underwear of the upper servants like butlers, housekeepers, and cooks. Functionally, the scullery maid was a servant to the other servants of the household. On the PBS website for the Manor House television series,  The Scullery Maid: Daily Duties are outlined for the fictional Ellen Beard. The setting is Edwardian England, which is during the reign of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910, but the duties are similar to earlier times- rising early to prepare for the household staff, lighting the fire of the kitchen stove, emptying chamber pots, etc. As the household upgraded technologically, these tasks became less of a burden. Sculleries and the servants who work in them are often featured in popular movies and television series, such as Upstairs Downstairs, The Duchess of Duke Street, and Downton Abbey. The home featured in the popular TV series, The 1900 House, has a scullery in the rear, behind the kitchen. Why Are Sculleries Thought of as British? For people living in the 21st century, its sometimes difficult to think of the day-to-day existence of people living in the not-too-distant past. Although civilizations have known about disease for thousands of years, its only been in recent years that people have understood the causes and transmission of sickness. The Romans built great public bathhouses that still influence todays architecture. Medieval households would cover nasty smells with perfumes and herbs. Not until the reign of Queen Victoria,  from 1837 until 1901, did the idea of modern public health come about.   Sanitation became a big concern in the 19th-century as the medical community gained a better knowledge of how to control infections. The British physician Dr. John Snow (1813-1858) became legendary in 1854 when he surmised that removing a towns pump handle would stop the transmission of the cholera epidemic. This use of the scientific method to deter the spread of disease made Dr. Snow the Father of Public Health, even though the bacteria Vibrio cholerae was not isolated until 1883. The awareness of cleanliness to avert disease was certainly not lost on the members of the upper class. The houses we build are not built in isolation from what is going on in society. The architecture built at the time of Queen Victoria- Victorian architecture- would be designed around the latest science and technology of the day. In the 1800s, having a room devoted to cleaning, the scullery, was high-tech thinking. Franke, a Swiss company formed in 1911, made their first sink in 1925 and still sell what they call scullery sinks. The Franke Scullery Sinks are large, deep, metal sinks of various configurations (1, 2, 3 sinks across). We might call them pot or prep sinks in a restaurant and shop or utility sinks in a basement. Nevertheless, many companies still call these sinks after the 19th-century name of a room. You can even buy these sinks from various manufacturers on Amazon.com. Significance of the Scullery to the US Homeowner People in the market for buying older homes are often puzzled at floor plans and how space is allocated- what are all those smaller rooms to the rear of the house? For old houses, remember: Kitchens were often additions, separated from the main house because of fire hazards.What we know as the middle class did not become a reality until the mid-twentieth century. What we consider  an old house today was probably built and inhabited by a financially well-off family with servants. Understanding the past helps us take charge of the future. Sources 150th Anniversary of John Snow and the Pump Handle, MMWR Weekly, September 3, 2004 / 53(34); 783 at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5334a1.htm [accessed January 16, 2017]

3 Cases of Missing Commas

3 Cases of Missing Commas 3 Cases of Missing Commas 3 Cases of Missing Commas By Mark Nichol The presence or absence of a single punctuation mark can create confusion or ambiguity about the meaning of a sentence. Three sentences illustrating this problem, each followed by discussion and revision, follow: 1. These factors make it hard for management to decide what to communicate to directors given the board’s crowded agenda. The lack of punctuation preceding given creates the implication that it is a verb that refers to something the directors are being handed. But here, given is a preposition signaling that information about a mitigating factor is about to be imparted, and punctuation should separate this tacked-on phrase from the main clause: â€Å"These factors make it hard for management to decide what to communicate to directors, given the board’s crowded agenda.† (The additional phrase could also begin the sentence: â€Å"Given the board’s crowded agenda, these factors make it hard for management to decide what to communicate to directors.†) 2. It’s not a real pleasant experience to tell you the truth. As written, this sentence suggests that the writer does not enjoy telling the truth to the reader (or, if the sentence is a quotation, to someone the speaker is talking to), but this is not the writer’s (or speaker’s) intent. To signal that â€Å"to tell the truth† is simply a conversational aside, it should be separated from the main clause: â€Å"It’s not a real pleasant experience, to tell you the truth.† (As in the previous sentence, the modifying phrase can begin the sentence: â€Å"To tell you the truth, it’s not a real pleasant experience.†) 3. The coach had pursued a star athlete only to have a deal fall just short. This sentence reads as if the coach had tried to recruit an athlete for the sole purpose of having a deal fall short; only could be misconstrued as a synonym for merely. But the part of the sentence starting with only is a modifying phrase describing the result of a sincere recruiting effort, and it should be set off from the main clause: â€Å"The coach had pursued a star athlete, only to have a deal fall just short.† (Unlike the dependent clauses and the main clauses in the sentences above, this pair of clauses cannot be transposed without heavy revision.) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Types and Forms of Humor15 Words for Household Rooms, and Their Synonyms45 Idioms About the Number One